


the same exalted impulse

by GStK



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 11:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17548598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: there is nothing left to take away.





	the same exalted impulse

**Author's Note:**

> Canon-divergent. Plays fast and loose with the backstory of the Astrals.  
> Second Person PoV.

in the beginning there was god. and when there was god, soon after, there was you.

there were many of you. and you began, as all things do, from the elementary, breathing in air and dispensing clouds from your lungs. you were small. he was not. and if he was anything, incomprehensible to your puny minds, then he was perfect, and his creations were, too.

but that’s wrong.

you didn’t breathe out clouds: you exhaled elements, principal things far more complex than any of his nonsense and childish tales. his proverbs? ridiculous. there were many of you and he called you astrals and he gave you hands, feet, minds, and somehow, he didn’t expect you to start pulling apart all his little creations.

or maybe he did. maybe he wanted you to turn to him and start digging into him with your hands. maybe he wanted to be pulled apart.

god’s perfect creations tore him to pieces. the creator left; the destroyer stayed, like a father tapping his foot, disappointment plain.

the creator left. abandoned perfect creations made with unyielding perfect intentions.

but you were not so. you first tasted rage when you saw the world torched and reborn, and you remained the same, the wrongness of it all buried beneath your skin.

* * *

“it’s real hot,” he’s saying, fluttering next to your head like a fly, “all this stuff you got planned. the other guys are off playing around and you’re doing… this. you wanna know what they’re up to?”

“i already know.”

“‘course. but you’ve only got your next project on the brain. which is, ah--”

self-explanatory. you feel him break away from you, go flitting over to the tube. he can gape all he likes. you don’t look up from your work.

“i  _love_ the  _self_ -love shtick you’ve got going on. it’s so exotic.” he’s not gaping; he’s grinning. you feel it pressed against your ear when he returns to your side, presses close again. “really really fucked up. you’re gonna make something beneath you into this dress-up doll that looks like you? i mean--”

he’s looking at you. his gaze is trying to shoot straight through you. but what are arrows from a man whose sinews you sewed together one long night spent stargazing? “what inspired you? any tips for the aspiring freaks?”

you break mental fast and turn your gaze towards a glowing tube filled with liquid, magic, and a face that looks exactly like yours. the body is half-constructed, but the shoulders are broad, far broader than yours were made. the bones tied loosely together create a stature that will exceed your own.

“belial.”

when his name is called, your creation gives a little jolt. he stands up straighter. you didn’t make him that way; he’s tried to make his imperfections into something else. (what had he called it -- a  _kink_?)

“if i had made you not to your liking, what would you do?”

the question tells him everything. the question is one you already know the answer to, because you know he resents you, just as much as he yearns for you. when you gaze upon him, he has a sick grin spreading over his face.

“me? i would make the best of it. it’s no fun if you get  **everything**  you want.”

“you wouldn’t see fit to kill me.”

“now, that… that would be a big problem if i did. i got my own plans, you know.” he smiles again, and this time, he wants you to see the full force of his canines.

“hmm.”

“you wanna kill god?” he touches your shoulder. you don’t brush him off. your eyes return to the sight of your salvation. “now that, cilius, sounds like loads of fun.”

* * *

the creator? a fool. some of your peers spend time undoing his work, making it better than it could have ever been. primals turn to world-shaking beasts beneath their fingertips. you go one step further and you create. not from nothing, but from the materials of this world, you shape.

cores, angels, beasts given dominion over the whole of the world. this isn’t your home, no, but you could make it one. the flesh you create is ideal in shape and design-- but yours are different. you are different. you are not a god who gives rise to cruel stagnation.

imperfection: you give each one of them a flaw. ignorance; greed; desire. you say it is so they will not turn against you. you say it is because your machinations require creatures of effort, not of perfect mind, and how could a primal hope to exceed an astral, anyway?

(but: you have in mind your own idea of perfection.)

but: the one who craves and wants for the thing you will never give, with a crow’s smile and a jester’s eyes, sometimes -- you fancy the idea of him as an equal.

you suppose above all, you fancy the idea that one of them will topple you.

* * *

“my friend.”

he declares himself with a  _tap_ , the sound of his shoes landing on hallowed marble. canaan suits a place like lucifer. you’ve equipped him with the worst flaw of all and yet everyone treats it as a strength.

“yes?”

you meet his gaze, quill in hand. he’s studying you. he’ll never understand you; he wasn’t made for that. “what is it,” you press him, vexed.

his expression doesn’t change. “do you know what you are doing?”

a heartbeat passes. you crane your neck towards him, no longer slouched over your work. you think to laugh at him, but you smile, instead. still, his expression doesn’t change.

“long have i dreamed of those words,” you say. his brow begins to furrow. finally, life. “do _you_ , lucifer? i don’t believe this concerns you.”

“... my friend. if you continue on your path, inevitably, it will. i would plead with you--”

“but you won’t,” you retort. his expression is a stormcloud brewing in a coffee cup. “i made you to be better than that. if the time comes, you will do what you think you must, and so will i. you’ve far exceeded what i thought possible, but that has never changed.”

he does not like being denied by you. you can’t tell if it’s the skydwellers or his toy that have made him complacent, made him start to think that courses can be changed and a creator’s plan can be altered. he almost begins to forget he’s nothing more than a tool.

“sooner or later, your role will wind to a close. look forward to it, lucifer. few of my creations count themselves lucky enough to earn a vacation.”

you dismiss him with that thought. when he alights, he doesn’t leave a single feather behind.

* * *

astrals have no need for mirrors; it is their creations that want for them. they seek to see every little change brought, each way their figures bend and snap to create new forms. you indulge them rarely. mostly, it is their reflection in the laboratory’s test tubes that you offer.

one way or another you catch glimpses of yourself. your shoulders, not wide enough: you conceal them in black. your figure, too slender, and you make it disappear beneath a mile of white fabric. your face, rounded and echoing of eve, so you harden your gaze and thin your lips until you hardly recognise her in your skin. your voice is too light and you dip it in tones of acid and that seems to work well enough. these things you do to defy the creator.

you can’t change how some of them call for you,  _lady_ and not  _lord_. you can ignore them, you can scowl to spite them, but you cannot change this one thing. neither can you ask lucifer, still only as high as your hip, to keep from looking.

“lucilius? what do they mean?”

“ignore their nonsense. we have work to do.”

“... i understand, but what should i call you...?”

hanging in the air and the breath of the moment, you look down at him, and he looks up at you. he has never needed a mirror because he looks your identical, except:

he will be  _right_.

“you may call me your friend, lucifer. come.”

* * *

before he comes for you, there is this moment:

sandalphon considering you with thinly-veiled fear. his maker lucifer has grown him up in the gardens but never stopped to think his roots were getting too ingrained. sandalphon resembles something between skydweller child and angel, mere imitation without purpose in his design. you have never liked him for that reason.

he does not like you either. you expect as much.

“i thank you, my friend,” lucifer says. hearing it makes you frown.

“if anyone should be thanking me, it’s him.” sandalphon jerks, and you’re unsure if it comes from your hand at his back or from you acknowledging his presence. “well?”

“... thank you,” he says through gritted teeth.

“did you not expect these results from trapping your creation in a garden for a hundred years?” you tell lucifer, drumming each process of the spine-- then, to the wings. they were dead almost as soon as they grew. they’re grey and the feathers are skeletal. “if you wanted him to fly, then you should have taken him to the skies.”

lucifer shuts his eyes. “what can be done?”

“i have a pair of wings i’ve been working on.” sandalphon glances between you and lucifer. you touch his temples, fix his eyes to look straight ahead. “they’re meant for a larger creation, but he’s designed to grow. perhaps in another hundred years they’ll be his size.”

“but his wings…”

“yes. these must go.”

“lucifer!” sandalphon cries, finally giving in to his cowardice. the only thing that keeps him from launching out of his chair is the look his maker gives him. “i don’t want that!”

“sandalphon. it is my failures that put you through this.” he even looks, for a moment, regretful. how strange. “the fault is mine.”

you grip bony shoulders and lean in. “learn from this, little sandalphon, that you and your creator will never want the same things.”

sandalphon shivers. you teach him that the idea of perfection is worthless.

* * *

his sword runs you through. is it mercy or foolishness that he doesn’t finish you off?

it’s no matter. your crow comes to pick at the scraps.

“so i can do whatever i want with the body, right? i’m so excited, i might even--”

“finish the job,” you rasp, scowling at him. this should be quick and easy for someone like him. but belial hesitates. belial hesitates and you both know exactly why, and yet he continues to do it.

 “you sure?”

“you’re going--” you cough. there’s blood. “you’re going to argue with a dying man, your creator, about finality?”

“mm. fair enough.”

he levels your own spear at your neck with that always-changing, never-perfect smile.

“love you, cilius. say cheese!”

you take a breath and

* * *

  

it’s dark, for a time.

 

* * *

things do not go to plan. your wild machinations to call back the creator are as ash; the replacement takes your wings. you trace the ragged scar around your neck and find pleasure in it. you’re far from canaan in a place you don’t recognise at all.

“looks good,” belial says when you touch your new skin. he says it soft and it’s a moment where you shut your eyes, so you can’t see the yearning look on his face. “looks like you’re exactly where you belong.”

“clearly,” you scoff at him. your voice is deeper, too, though you don’t quite understand it. “this body was designed for me, by me. there’s nothing that could ruin it, no matter what vulgar things you’ve done in the last --”

“what, ten years? i don’t even remember any more.” belial laughs, wrapping an arm around you. “two thousand for you. been a long time, cil-- no. lucifer?”

“lucifer,” you agree.

you kiss him. he doesn’t deserve it. but you do.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary adapted from works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.


End file.
